


Tether

by Colerate



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: By writing a tragedy, First chapter is the shortest, Foster Care, Gen, Harry Potter Abandoned by Dursleys, Harry Potter is Not a Horcrux, I'm using this to revise tragedy for A Level, Medium - Freeform, Necromancy, Tragedy, if you want to call it that, medium Harry Potter, now just includes Fun Facts, revision, sort of half gave up on the revision aspect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-08-25 15:12:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16663183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colerate/pseuds/Colerate
Summary: On the 31st of October 1981, Harry James Potter died. Then, he came back to life.Those who lived when they ought to be dead did not tend to find existence a pleasant thing.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a study in tragedy. 
> 
> I'm currently in my second year of A Level English Literature and thought that this would be an engaging way to explore the genre I have to revise. In the notes, I'll be dropping little bits and pieces of information about the genre such as conventions that I either adhere to or break. We'll be delving into the differences between Shakespeare and Greek tragedy, morality plays and Literary Critics takes on what makes a story a tragedy etc.
> 
> Maybe we can all learn something together and _just maybe_ this will be an enjoyable read regardless.
> 
> Edit: Here's a [visual ](https://colespots.tumblr.com/post/180481040607/based-on-chapter-one-of-my-fanfic-tether-another) for this chapter from my [tumblr](https://colespots.tumblr.com/)

Dying is indescribable. 

It's the absence of everything the soul once knew, which wasn't a whole lot. It had only been among the living for little over a year. It hadn't even begun to construct long-term memories, it was that young. The soul hadn't had a chance to become anything more than a vessel with a breath of life. Truly, it was cruel and more common than the average living person would suspect. Less common was the means that the soul had come to return to their skeletal hands. Murdered because of a prophecy that had not even graced its ears.

The soul didn't even know who death was. 

_Sad, really_ Death thought as they cradled the bright soul. _That it should come to meet me so soon._ But there was nothing that could be done for it. Well, there was, but those who lived when they ought to be dead did not tend to find existence a pleasant thing. They could see it in Tom, as his insanity lead him down a path paved with bodies that would come to an end far from what he had envisioned. Death was not something to be trifled with.

But then, something unexpected happened.

Another soul chimed, fiery red and much older than the brilliant white one Death held yet still so young. It chimed and chimed and chimed, trailing towards them with residual magic simmering beyond it. Most unusual - magic rarely crossed the boundary. Death offered a hand, keeping the white soul in the other, and the red took it. Lily Potter, a witch who died a mere minute before her son who Death now laid claim to. She had committed an act most unnatural, it would seem.

Trading lives often didn't go too well, whether that be through murder or sacrifice. The one who lived would always return to Death soon enough, restoring the natural order in turn. Although Death could not blame the wizards and witches who offered up their lives, the intentions were usually well placed and decisions often made in the most desperate of moments. 

Cadmus tutted as he watched Death release the unfortunate soul from their grasp. "It won't do it any good"

Death wondered about that, the ideals of good and bad that the living had conjured. The prophecy, as fickle as it may be, would have either the white soul doing good or Tom further bad. In a world of 'greater goods' and 'lesser evils', perhaps it would do some good to return the soul to its still warm vessel. The act of returning alone would have an adverse effect on Tom, a very appealing prospect which Death would smile at if they had a face. The brothers would just have to smile in their place.

So Death and Cadmus watched the soul leave them, soon joined by Antioch and Ignotus. It followed the fiery red trail and tethered itself to the realm of the living once more. 

Ignotus and Antioch smiled. 

Cadmus watched on with knowing eyes.


	2. The Exposition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's early years according to those around him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> William Shakespeare wrote many famous tragedies with stories often inspired or borrowed from real events or pre-existing tales. It is even reasonable to say that he was indirectly influenced by the Greeks, as it is possible that he read Latin translations of the originals. Within his tragic plays, one can find a pretty clean cut five-part structure.
> 
> The first part is _Exposition_  
>  We are introduced to the character, a person in a high position. This is often conveyed through their standing in society. For example, in King Lear, the main character is a King. It allows for the fall of the rest of the story to be quite easy to follow, such as falling from power to powerless. This stage also sets the tone and themes for the rest of the play. We may also get a glimpse at the hero's "tragic flaw". Overall, life is good. Or if life is not good, it's better than it will be.

The child is small, pale and wrapped in an excessive number of layers that only extenuated how fragile he looked. Even in the crisp autumn air on a night as cold as this, it should have been unnecessary. But when Minerva had expressed as much, her hand had been directed to the baby's frigid skin and any complaint left her. If anything, little Harry needed _more_ blankets.

Further dwarfed in the arms of Hagrid, the child slept silently. No noise had left his mouth, no whimper nor sigh. She was tempted to check his breathing and second-guessed the headmaster of all people when he assured her that "yes, he is alive and well". 

She cast the wisened man a doubtful look, which she averted to the sky when the man returned her gaze with meaning. Dumbledore would know what he was doing. Yet she still felt the urge to press further and question his decision regarding Harry's new keepers. She had been watching the family all day and was set firmly in the belief that nothing good could come from these muggles. They were the worst sort imaginable. 

The stars above them twinkled benignly and the darkened street remained as plain and innocuous as it had been when she first set foot there, but she couldn't shake the ominous feeling that tacked itself to her subconsciousness. Questions that begged to be answered swirled around her mind. What child didn't cry when away from his parents? What child was like ice to the touch? What child could be struck by the killing curse and survive? 

Before they left, she made sure to cast a quick heating charm on the blankets, although she somehow knew it wouldn't make a difference. 

_-_-_

As soon as her eyes laid sight on that boy, Petunia knew there was something wrong with it. Something very wrong. 

In the beginning, that had been based on the assumption that anything her sister could possibly birth would be undoubtedly awful and most certainly uncivilised. What followed after they took the damned thing in only confirmed her initial suspicions and _then some_. It was a freak of nature, society, religion, life and beyond all help. 

It looked and felt like a corpse, constantly freezing and sheet white. And there was that _feeling_ that had her questioning her view on the sixth sense when she found her shivers weren't from the cold alone. Then the eyes, oh God, those pale green eyes. She was so sure he was blind at first yet the opticians said that he just needed glasses despite the eerie discolouration. 

She swore that sometimes, when the freakish business occurred, they flashed the same bright green that her sister's had once been. 

Vernon didn't understand, simply chalking it all up to it being "one of them lot". But Petunia had never encountered a witch or wizard that felt so _wrong_ , not Lily and her terrible husband nor the greasy neighbour. Wandering down that trail of thought, she once speculated that maybe Mr Potter wasn't actually the father, what a beautifully scandalous turn of events that would be. The pale skin, dark hair... but no, the resemblance was unmistakable as it grew older. Definitely Potter's brat. It creeped her out all the same.

Didn't the old man say that the child nearly died that night? 

Petunia wondered if it actually did.

Rather than celebrating its birthday, they took it to the doctors when it turned three years old. Within minutes it had sent the kindly old doctor into a frenzy, consulting the local hospital and driving the freak to A and E because it _couldn't_ be that cold. An adult would soon die at that temperature, nevermind a three-year-old and its significantly smaller body. 

An upstart journalist caught wind of the tale and published a story on the child, a miracle of science he called it. Vernon hired a lawyer and hell descended on the man within the day. Petunia just scoffed at the title, how could he have mistaken the freak so badly? A miracle? She laughed so hard that Vernon was disturbed enough to ask if she'd been sleeping well enough recently. The answer was no. 

She warned Dudley away from it, not wanting to contaminate her beautiful son with whatever evil was harboured in the freak. But she couldn't stop him from being so... aggressive. Unnatural for his age, she reckoned, but the freak just brought that out in people. She had to lock it away whenever they had visitors.

As much as she wanted to, she couldn't keep it in the cupboard all the time. She wasn't a monster. But it was so incredibly unnerving when it was in the same room as them. It didn't _do_ anything, the opposite actually. It watched with its hollow eyes and bland expression, never making a noise outside of necessity. Dudley babbled and babbled, the bright boy that he was. The freak preferred to point and only speak when spoken to. Remarkable really, that the child picked up any language at all. She had read somewhere, in one of the many childcare books she bought in preparation for Duddley, that social interaction was key to a child's development. The freak wasn't getting a lot of that. Maybe the books were wrong, it wasn't like they could conduct studies on that particular theory, being so unethical and all. Ethics didn't apply to that child. 

Mrs Figgs didn't seem overly fond of it either but agreed nonetheless to every drop-off. Petunia didn't have the heart to abuse her kindness to the point of leaving him every day. However, that didn't mean that she didn't make sure the visits were almost weekly and overnight where her conscience allowed. 

A pattern sprung up when Mrs Figgs' cat gave birth. The freak tried to smuggle one kitten back from each visit, a scraggly black thing with unnervingly familiar bright green eyes. Everytime Petunia would return it, the freak would bring it back. It continued that way for four weeks until one day, neither it nor Mrs Figgs could say where the cat had gone. She wasn't sure if it was just her imagination, but it looked rather disturbed for a while after that. An emotion that was more than just a blank stare. 

When it turned five, Vernon got rid of the wretch before she could throttle it herself.

_-_-_

Emelia Sandwell had personally known David Milton, they had bonded over their job and met up bi-monthly with their respective wards, which was why she was surprised upon hearing that he couldn't handle his latest foster child. Even stranger so, he couldn't provide any legitimate reasons beyond having a "bad feeling, really bad Emelia, you'll understand once you have him".

So she disregarded Milton's warnings and welcomed Harry with open arms when the social services officer had handed him over.

He was cold. He was quiet. He didn't really hold conversations but spoke when spoken to. He watched the TV and drew pictures of animals, cats seemingly his favourite. Nothing she hadn't dealt with before and certainly not enough to turn him away, yet something didn't sit right. 

The first week was uneventful. She got him settled, toured the house and made sure he was generally okay. He was weird, yes, but quite easy to handle. 

David refused their bi-monthly meet-up so she took him to the meadows for a picnic by herself. 

The weather was nice enough, a simple breezy late morning in Autumn. Leaves were turning from green to orange, dancing in the faint wind and speckling the unkempt grass with spots of colour. Rather picturesque, actually, all she needed was for Harry to wear a yellow raincoat with red wellies and they'd walk right into a picture book. Instead, Harry had a beige anorak paired with Primark trainers but the way he clutched at the sketchbook he'd turned up with was cute at least. She even caught a smile when an especially bright orange leaf swatted his nose and landed in his hand. 

Upon reaching the same clearing she usually visited with David, they settled down the picnic blanket and brought out the jam sandwiches. The blanket was a bit of a ragged thing and definitely filed under the category of sentimental over practical but it did the job and Emelia's dad had been a firm believer of getting the utmost use out of everything the Sandwell family bought. Emelia respected that and reflected the same ideals in her own life where her job's regulations allowed. Safety, of course, always comes first. 

As per usual, Harry didn't fancy talking all too much so she let him be, observing the sluggish clouds with his admittedly off-putting eyes. Emelia's dad had also been a strong believer in trusting gut feelings, but she would ignore the way her stomach twisted for now. Harry hadn't done a single thing wrong. He was almost too well behaved if anything. 

Then a guilt-ridden David called her, apologising for refusing the meeting which then turned into asking about Harry which then turned into how his own foster child was doing and then- well, Harry was contentedly sat playing with a dandelion, what harm could it do to let her attention wander a little?

A fair bit, apparently, because he wasn't sat with her when the phone call ended. 

Gripped by panic, she called out his name and frantically scanned the greenery for Harry, mentally berating herself for not finding something brighter to dress him in. He would've blended into the tree line if it weren't for his voice. She snapped her head towards the sound, words very faint when compared to the whistle of the breeze. What had been a charming autumn atmosphere became suffocating and cold in light of his disappearance. 

She hurriedly ran towards the trees and found him edging towards the gloom beyond them. He was so small against the forest backdrop. Had the meadow always been this dark and unwelcoming? 

"Can't you come out here?" He asked, craning his neck to get a look at something she couldn't see from where she was. Clearly, someone was trying to lure him away from her. 

"Harry!" She grabbed him by the arm and tugged him behind her, perhaps a little too roughly if his small gasp was anything to go by. She couldn't see anyone. Whoever it was had run off when realising the poor boy was no longer alone. "You can't wander off like that, it's not safe!"

"There was a sick man..." He trailed off, still craning to look behind her. "He needed help" 

Emelia took him by the hand and hastily made her way back to their picnic site, a fair few meters away. She was lucky David had ended the conversation when he did, Harry had obviously never been taught about the dangers of trusting strangers. Once they were there, she began packing up, talking as she did so. Harry automatically pitched in, the boy was too helpful for his own good. 

"You can't trust strangers Harry, it's dangerous, you don't know what they want"

"But he was sick" He pleaded, his voice laced with an uncanny amount of emotion. She had grown accustomed to his monotonous tenor. She zipped up the last of their rubbish and wrapped up Harry's leftover sandwiches for later. There was an anecdote about her dad there, but she didn't have the time to wander down memory lane right now. 

"He was lying, Harry" The boy went quiet after that. 

 

What lead to Emelia's decision to give up Harry just like David had begun as something completely innocent.

Harry started making dream catchers. Sort of. 

On the way home from the picnic, he started to collect little twigs, petals and leaves, silently nodding to himself and inspecting each and everyone. It made the journey longer than it had to be but Amelia was a little too shaken up to care. As long as Harry was within a meter and in her sight, he was fine to do as he pleased. Besides, picking up what she assumed were pretty objects to Harry was not going to hurt anyone. She briefly cringed as she remembered thinking something along those lines in regard to the phone call.

As their second week together started, he arranged them into patterns of sorts on the desk in his temporary room. She called them dream catchers because they honestly resembled the hanging decorations, aside from the fact that Harry objected to glueing them together when she suggested it. So desk bound dream catchers they were. 

Then he started adding feathers into the mix which again matched the dream catcher theme. It was also at this point that Harry expressed his first sign of normal child behaviour: he threw a tantrum. One of the feathers was _bloodied at the tip_ and "that could be carrying all kinds of diseases, Harry!". So he screamed and cried and God she hated herself for it but she gave the feather back anything to stop that awful sound that ripped at her ears and sunk teeth into her head oh may the Lord have mercy and stop the tearing of her brain and gnawing and pounding and-

He went back to being Harry again. Collecting and crafting with blank eyes and a blank face. Like nothing ever happened. Emelia almost believed that nothing did. 

On Thursday, she went to chop the carrots for the stew with her sharpened knife only to find that she had misplaced it. Not the first time she'd done that and certainly not the last. With a small huff, she went to use a different knife, the one with the stubby handle that didn't sit right in her palm. 

Then on Sunday, she got the most peculiar feeling that something was _wrong_ as she watched the soaps in the living room, Harry supposedly sleeping soundly in the bedroom above her. So she switched the television off and was immediately assaulted by the most uncomfortable atmosphere she'd ever felt in her life. The darkness was oppressive, no longer did she feel safe in the familiarity of her own home. Paranoia swathed her brain in worries. Had she locked the door? Were the windows closed? 

Was someone in the house?

Harry was the priority. Slowly, she crept up the stairs, avoiding the rickety fourth step that always bent under the slightest pressure. There were plenty of windows with a clear view of the street lamps outside yet the light barely penetrated the house, the soft orange glare glancing off the panes. It was when she reached the landing, Harry's door in view, that she heard it. 

Whispering.

An unmistakably male voice, too deep to be Harry's. For an achingly long moment, she was frozen in action. She'd never had a break in before. No one had ever thought to steal from her. No one had gotten past her none the wiser. No one-

Breaking from her stupor, she whipped out her phone, screen glaringly bright in the black of the corridor. With shaking hands, she dialled 999. 

Police on the line, help on the way, Emelia charged through the door. 

Silvery glinting in the moonlight leaking white from the lone _closed_ window, a knife wrapped in deathly pale hands so small and wracked with tremors. Red dripping in unison with salty tears as pale thin lips quivered, talking to someone _who wasn't there_. She grasped him bodily from behind and yanked the knife from his grip, flinging it away, before a single drop could touch what she had thought was a _dream catcher_.

In a flurry of flashing red and blue along with piercing sirens and authoritative voices, the police removed both her and Harry from the scene. 

Emelia Sandwell would not be fostering again in the near future.

_-_-_

If the reports were to be believed, the child is six years old, male and of Britsh descent. The reports were to be viewed with obvious scrutiny, as not much documentation actually supported these claims aside from a questionable article on a scientific miracle and what the social services could scrounge up. Harry was past the definition of a problem child.

From what the child had told Dr Jacqueline Roberts, he had previously belonged to a small family with a possible aunt he couldn't even name. There was no mother or father in the equation, just an aunt, a boy and a man. Before reaching Jacqueline, Harry had been with a total of four foster carers over three months while social services secured more permanent care after he had been found alone on a park bench in Brighton. They had reason to believe that the boy did not live there, given that he hadn't known his way around the place and couldn't name any of the landmarks or even give vague directions towards his house. He was also suspiciously soaked with sea water in weather that was much too cold for swimming.

The first three foster carers had given him up without any real excuse, much to the ire of the social workers. Comments like "he's quiet", "he's cold" and "he's creepy" were common denominators in each assessment. Then there was the final foster carer and the reason why Harry was now meeting with Jackqueline. 

In a fit of paranoia, Emelia Sandwell had called the police claiming that there was an intruder in the house, whispering in her temporary ward's bedroom. She'd then been found clutching the child as he bled, a knife behind them and what honestly looked like something cultish on the desk. 

The professional doctor in Jacqueline Roberts speculated that Harry had been mistreated and neglected. The less rational side of her wanted to say he was possessed.

Having already asked the preliminary questions, Jackqueline began to sift through the material she was provided. Specifically, the pictures of the desk. She slid one over to Harry with a pleasant smile. "Can you tell me what this is?"

"Barnabus said it was like a string," The boy said, not meeting her eyes. Instead focusing on something just to the left of her. 

_So there's a Barnabus_. She noted the mysterious figure down. She had to wonder where such an old traditional name had come from, most imaginary friends had names like "Milly" or "Bob". It reminded her of the so-called 'intruder'... perhaps the police had somehow been mistaken. Also, a string? The craft didn't even remotely resemble a string.

"Who's Barnabus?" She asked, pleasant smile still in place. When he didn't answer, she elaborated. "Was he your friend?"

"No" Harry replied, his gaze now to the armrest of his white chair. He was fiddling with a brown leaf.

"What was Barnabus like?" 

"Sick, he was very sick " That was strange. 

"What did he look like?" If this Barnabus figure didn't fit the usual features of the average imaginary friend, she would be worried. Children often liked imaginary companions who were the same age as themselves or were personifications of their toys. Sometimes the descriptions were just too unusual for the friend to be real.

"Old... he had a long beard" This wasn't boding well. "And strange clothes, like a fancy green dressing gown... with stars and moons" _Oh thank God._

"How did you meet Barnabus?" A time frame for when this friend emerged would be helpful and she was hoping to get some insight into how this figure may have influenced his decisions... children don't just attempt suicide out of the blue. Most children don't know what suicide is. 

"I saw him in the trees and he called me over. I was going to tell Emelia but she was on the phone, I really was, promise, but it's rude" Jackqueline made sure her worry wasn't conveyed in her expression as she nodded for him to continue. "He was stuck in the trees, sun was too bright for him which is silly because it was cloudy. Emelia said he was lying"

Gradually, she coaxed the story out of him. Barnabus had turned up in his room shortly afterwards. Supposedly, he was the one who told Harry to collect the sticks and feathers to make the patterns. He was also the one who told him to "drop just a bit of blood, not a lot, he said not a lot, then Emeline came in" He didn't say anything more after that, aside from that he hadn't seen Barnabus since. 

_Possessed_. Dr Jackqueline Roberts wrote a reminder to consider the possibility of schizophrenia later.

_-_-_

Scorching hot rays of sunshine splattered the usually abysmal playground with xanthous hues as a particularly kind summer heat set in. Previously dull pastel and rusted silver outdoor play equipment along with the muddy slide and lonely swing were alight in the golden glow, giving the illusion that the school grounds are actually well looked after. Children's cries and squeals of laughter were carried along the slightest breeze, the icing on top of the perfect village school scene. This is what people imagine when they think of the romanticised countryside of England and precisely what fooled Miss Ana Lee to move for a teaching job at a drastically underfunded primary school in the middle of nowhere.

She was sat on the chipped wooden bench welded to the red brick of the school building, absentmindedly toying with the break time whistle hung around her neck, clipping and unclipping it. She would be stood, centred, watching the children with more focus but the two dinner ladies have that covered, even if Mrs Kavan favoured watching her own child over the others. So Ana didn't feel overly guilty for taking the time to sit by the reclusive but otherwise well mannered Harry Potter who also watched the scene before them. 

She'd been trying to encourage him to play with the other children ever since he moved into the local residential children's home but to no avail. He preferred to sit and watch. When he wasn't doing that, he was playing with his made up friend. He was getting a bit old for that though, at age seven, he should make some real friends. 

Ana knows the child has some difficulties, as her teacher, safeguarding requires that she knows. The poor child had schizophrenia and, while they weren't aware of this, the children didn't like him on principle. It's not the first time a child in her class has been isolated, she'd had a student who met a rather untimely end because of the same reason. Jamie was why she so desperately wanted to help little Harry out. And God, he really was so small. If it weren't for the fact that she had taught several children from the home, she'd question if they treated him right. 

Today, Harry had his sketchbook. It was almost finished and absolutely filled with all sorts of drawings from little black kittens to messy portraits of the strangest people. They all had names too. Right now, he was drawing another portrait of what looked like it was going to be a young boy. While Harry wasn't exactly bad at art, he was still young, so it was hard to tell. 

"Who's that Harry?"

"My friend. You know he jumped really high at sports day miss!" He chattered excitedly but without lifting his pencil from the page. Once she had gotten past the immediate revulsion that the child seemed to emanate, he was a delight to talk to. Very enthusiastic about his 'friend'. Maybe one day he'd write a book with that creativity of his, his friend almost seemed real. 

"I don't think I remember you being there on sports day" She mused, there was a chance he just didn't participate but Ana tended to beeline for Harry at these events, encouraging him to be more social. 

"No, I didn't go, Jamie did"

The whistle fell from her hands, hitting the gravel with a tinny clatter.

_-_-_

Andrew doesn't like the little weirdo. No one at the fucking dump does. He's been with them for two years, the creepy eight-year-old, and Andrew's turned both thirteen then fourteen and had to invite him to his bloody birthday _both times_ because the sicko has _no fucking friends._

There's something wrong with him. Now, Andrew has nothing against people whose brains aren't properly right or anything, he's best mates with Sadie for Christ's sake. Sure, Sadie has her episodes but they're nowhere as creepy as Harry's are. 

He's always looking at things that aren't there and even has whole fucking conversations with people who aren't real when he thinks no ones about. Then, when he finally notices you, he just looks and then looks back as if he's been chatting shit. Doesn't help that he spends his time doing the weirdest shit when he's not chatting to thin air. He spent a week just making different kinds of bows out of this one piece of ribbon until Christopher cut the damn thing right in front of the creep's eyes. Chris ain't even a mean lad either, the kid just makes you want to kick his head in. They had to fire one of the key workers for messing the bugger's face up when he scratched loads of nonsense into his wall like he was off one of those stupid horrors Sadie likes. He wasn't the only one that was scared a bit by that, Andrew would have knocked him about a bit too.

Andrew, in his own high opinion, isn't even a violent sort of guy. He knows violent lads, like his big brother, who think they're all hard and that because they wear full Adidas and smoke but Andrew isn't like that. Well, he is, Adidas is fresh as fuck but he's not about to scrap with some random kid from his own dump who hasn't done anything to him first. He's been waiting for the creep to snap and fight back against Chris so he can jump in and not get in trouble for it. Chris ain't a fighter after all. Neither is Harry but he'd gotta have long nails on him to make those marks in the wall. But the point is, Andrew has restraint and he's never actually attacked anyone first before yet he's raring to start with a stupid eight year old who's barely half his size. He told Beth, she's a year older than him and has the room next to the sicko. She's the same, counts every day that she's successfully managed to not fuck him up for getting too close. Says it's the whispering that's the worst for her. 

When they were told that the weirdo was being transferred for one reason or another, everyone was glad he was leaving. Even the fucking staff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Tether's_ exposition isn't quite the same as Shakespeare's  
> In Tether, we have Harry, an orphan boy who is a victim of circumstances he cannot control. He is not in a position of power nor does he have a high standing in society. This is more typical of modern tragedies, where the protagonist can be a "common Joe". Rather than sympathising with royalty, we can empathise with a regular person. Of course, Harry isn't exactly regular either. 
> 
> The exposition does not quite end with this chapter. As the Boy-who-lived, he does have a position of power and a standing in society. We just aren't there yet. 
> 
> \-------  
> By the way, I finally got a tumblr 'cause that seems to be what people do on here. I'm [Colespots](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/colespots), or just Cole really.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has four friends.
> 
> \----  
> If you're not a fan of OCs, don't worry, when he goes to Hogwarts they won't be as heavily incorporated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Classical Greek Tragedy, one theme that is often explored is the relationship between parents and children, wives and husbands. As previously mentioned, Shakespeare may have been indirectly influenced by Greek literature, translated to Latin. We can definitely see this in how he reflects this exploration. 
> 
> In particular, his plays that feature royalty often look into the natural order of family, how it is broken and reinforced. In King Lear, Edmund breaks the natural order when he schemes against his own brother and father, tearing the family apart. Lear also does something very similar at the beginning when he banishes his daughter Cordelia. Then his remaining two daughters betray him. In the end, we are left with very broken relationships between parents and children.

It's cold, but not terribly cold. A chilly breeze drifts a little lazily, sometimes spurting up with sudden energy as though it were playing. Dandelion seeds are its playmates, dancing like little white ballerinas along the current accompanied by spots of something he can't quite name, but look a lot like dust flitting in and out of the setting sun's rays. 

Atop the plastic slide, he almost has a view on par with the collared dove that likes to perch on the fence sometimes. It's a small slide. But the collared dove wasn't cooing in the garden today, a different breed of bird had caught his attention. He'd been watching them for a short while now, the new residents in the only tree the garden has. A spindly pear tree that the mother had deemed just about right for her nest. He wouldn't have gone for that one if he were a bird but to each their own. 

No longer was the mother alone, her eggs had hatched and the little brown chicks fattened up. Soon they'd be taking flight. He hoped it was before curfew so he hadn't wasted the past two hours. Not that he had much else to do, he was just sleepy and didn't want to be _tired_ tomorrow. 

“Harry!” A cheery voice rang from behind him, slipping a jacket over his shoulders before he could even react. He hadn't heard her approach, so engrossed in watching the little chicks screech and bumble about in their twig house. It would be cool to live in a twig house, he thought, but then he remembered the tale of the three little pigs and shook his head.

The girl who gave him the jacket settles beside him, the two of them having to squish between the brackets of the slide. He doesn't mind though, because the girl is Linda, or at least that's her name right now. It could change. The point is, Linda is good and safe and funny so it's okay. It's been a year and she's done nothing to prove otherwise. 

“They asked me to bring you back in” She explains, half-heartedly gesturing in the general direction of the building behind them. They tend to do that, send Linda. Because she wants to. ~~The other kids don't.~~ But Instead of making a move to take him back inside, she continues. “So what's got you up so late on this fine chilly evening?” She drawls on the 'fine' and has a funny way of speaking that makes him smile a little. All ups and downs in her voice that she puts on. He's not quite sure when she's joking and when she's not. That's alright though, she's never mad at him either way, even if he's not as chattery as the other kids. 

He points to the nest and says “There's three baby chicks in there and they're gonna leave home soon”

“Oooooh” Linda breathes, a little exaggeratedly. “Wish I could fly away from home soon, but alas! I must stay until I'm sixteen! Three whole years! And a bit, but at least you're here, Harry” She slings an arm around him and gestures about her woes dramatically, wiping away a tear that isn't there. Harry smiles a little wider. “Ah, ah, look!” 

He turns his attention back to the chicks as Linda exclaims. The first chick has hopped up to the rim of the nest, wobbling a little before leaping with little hesitation and taking flight. That one would be Linda. The second is much the same with a few moments of added deliberation.

The final chick peers below, as if evaluating the distance between the ground and its nest with uncanny intelligence. It jumps back a little before stepping forwards again. As its head twitches and swivels to survey the world around it, something twists in Harry's gut. That bird would be him. 

The chick leaps. It falls. And it doesn't stop falling.

His vision is obscured as Linda throws her hands in front of his eyes, taking a sharp intake of breath at what can only be the bird crashing into the ground. A few seconds pass by, filled with something gross and wrong, before she takes back her hands. 

It's not much really, nothing dramatic. But seeing the prone body bent just a little oddly stirs something he doesn't like within him. The scene almost seems familiar and he shudders at the notion.

Linda is quick to dash down and pick the little body up. Bones and feathers. He slips down the slide to join her. “You shouldn't help it if it's dead” He warns gravely, keeping a small distance between himself and the body should any accident occur. 

“No, no, no” Linda repeats in a hushed tone, cradling the body close to her chest. She's smiling. “Look, here, it's twitching a little and I can see breathing, look!” She shows him the body and it does look like it's alive, actually. He lets go a breath he hadn't realised he was holding. “Come on, come on, let's take it inside and get it warm!” She's practically buzzing with excitement, smile alight with a sudden new energy. Soon enough, he's almost forgotten the awful feeling he'd had moments before when faced with Linda's unbridled grinning.

As they make their way back to the house, Linda half skipping and Harry close behind, she proposes that they call it Frankie and Harry thinks that's just fine.

The next day, the two are sat opposite each other on the fourth-floor windowsill. He quite likes this particular window for a number of reasons. For one, the location is pretty cool. The attic of the house has been reformed into a living space with a staircase leading up to it that runs across the middle, dividing it into two walled halves that house a room each. If Harry had gotten to choose his room, it would be one of the two up here, preferably the one Linda had so they could share. The window sits at the end of the staircase after a small landing, framed by the crest of the roof in a way that reminds him of the local church, less grand but just as old, probably. (It's not, but he doesn't realise that. One hundred years ago might as well be the same as five hundred years at this point – they're both really big numbers. Do not ask him to multiply by anything above one hundred, he'll refuse). Plus, it's facing East so they get a full view of the sunrise each morning which paints the eggshell walls in vivid oranges every time without fail, sometimes even pink. 

Most importantly, it's where he first saw Linda. Or Blake as she was then. Sitting with her back to one wall and feet rested against the other, diary held up by her arched legs and a feather tucked behind the ear. He didn't know it just then, but approaching her to ask about the pattern stained into the corners of the glass pane had been the catalyst of the best friendship he would have in the house. ~~The only friendship.~~

Now, she still had the diary but the feather is brown instead of silver and tucked within the well looked after pages while Harry sits on the other side, feet dangling over the ledge between the glass and the landing and not quite reaching the floor with the flats of his feet yet. He also has Frankie nestled in his hands, sleeping soundly. His bleary eyes don't leave the tiny little thing but Linda knows he's listening. Either that or she doesn't really mind if he isn't. 

“It's annoying” She complains, fiddling with the ends of the feather. “She's not even given a name and she's such a pivotal character, Unsex me now!” She's quoting, Harry knows, he can tell because Shakespeare spoke in gobbledegook while Linda speaks plain English like the rest of the world. Well, that isn't true if he counts the people who aren't really there. ~~They are. I know they are.~~

“I'd love to pinch her name...” She trails off, following thoughts Harry can't hear. It's okay, Harry slips into his brain almost all the time, at least Linda remembers to come back out. “Macbeth doesn't sound too great though, not for me”

“Beth” Harry suggests with a small shrug. Frankie is slowly waking up. _Hello_ he mouths to the little bird, breath barely ghosting along its feathers.

“Beth it is!” She declares, hurriedly opening her diary and ruling off a new page with a swift flick of her hand. “Beth, Beth, Beth” Muttering repeatedly, she writes the name down, tasting it on her tongue. 

Harry grimaces when she idly swishes the feather across her cheek in thought. “That could be carrying all kinds of diseases” He's echoing the words of someone else, he's not quite sure who. But Lin-Beth laughs his warning off as something silly so whomever it was mustn't have been very clever. Li-Beth is the most clever person he knows. 

They find a solution for Frankie beyond wrapping the bird up in her scarf when Beth picks him up from school. Her high school finishes half an hour before his primary does so she almost always makes the fifteen-minute journey to his. What she does for the other fifteen minutes, he's not sure. 

“I told Mr Underlyne, you know, the biology teacher, about Frankie and he said to pass him onto an expert rehabilitator, and guess what?” Harry nods for her continue, stifling a small yawn. “He knows one! At the local pet store!” She has that same excitement about her from the night they found Frankie alive. Harry can't help but smile a little. “Anyway, how's your day been?”

How had Harry's day been? Well, “I didn't find a partner in maths” and nothing else particularly stands out. Beth hums in what could be understanding, she seems like she would understand that. “How was yours?”

“High school sucks, but I already told you that, a lot” She exclaims as they begin to walk their usual route home, winding between all the other kids waiting for their parents and parents waiting for their kids. It's loud and he has to concentrate on what she is saying. “Everyone is awful, most teachers are boring and I'm glad it's Friday!” She says with false cheer and the usual drama he likes. He's definitely picking up on her sarcasm, even if he doesn't demonstrate it often.

Once ten minutes has passed, most of which was filled by their somewhat one-sided conversation, they reach the house and pick up Frankie before heading back out. 

They divert from the path back to school to head over to the pet shop around what Harry thinks might be halfway, turning from low traffic lanes lined by trees to slightly busier streets with shops speckled in-between houses, growing in frequency the further they walk. Town centre is just up ahead but they stop at the outskirts where a small pet shop resides with a faded blue front. Advertisements for pet carriers, flea treatment and various toys decorate the window and it's quite clear the place earns its revenue from selling items more so than from the small stock of animals that live inside. 

A small bell chimes as they enter, but the creaking of the door would be warning enough for the cashier whose sat behind the counter, cutting a conversation short and placing a phone back onto its receiver. “How can I help yah?” He looks around forty and puts a lot of effort into his hair. 

Beth explains the situation, even name-dropping Mr Underlyne. Harry thinks the man probably would take Frankie regardless but he's not about to speak up to a man he doesn't know and put an end to their conversation. Besides, he's content watching the little baby cockatoos shimmy up to the cage to meet him while steadfastly ignoring the older parrot chirping angrily from the corner. ~~Once they grow up, they'll be like that too.~~

Beth finishes up, Frankie has a new home, the cashier waves them goodbye and the two are off again, this time to the corner shop. It's tradition, at this point, to buy a little 10p Lollie each. Green for Harry and red for Beth. Or at least they would do if it weren't for the boys loitering outside, clearly dressed in the same green and black uniform Beth wears. 

Swiftly turning away from the shop, Beth takes hold of Harry's hand and begins hurriedly walking in the opposite direction. Not quick enough for the boys to miss her though, he can tell as they throw words in their direction and chortle obnoxiously. He doesn't catch what they say but Beth does if the fastening of her pace is any indication. He's almost running to prevent her from dislocating his shoulder.

“I know, let's go for an adventure!” She exclaims once they're two streets away from where they had been, back to the lazy lanes he's used to.

“There's nothing for adventures in this town” Harry says, scowling just a bit. There's a field they call “the park” which their own small garden puts to shame and the cemetery, the latter of which Beth takes them to. There's also the mall in the town centre but Beth wouldn't be caught there during peak hours even in death. Too many people she knows and, from the descriptions Beth gives those people, Harry doesn't think he'd like to be caught dead there either.

She drags him past the gate and the first few graves before dropping his hand and stopping in front of him, hands on her hips. “Whoever can find the oldest grave wins...” she looks about her and her gaze latches onto something. Muttering inaudibly about what he thinks might be squirrels, she picks it up. “This conker!” 

“But there's loads of conkers, it's September” Harry points out, unimpressed. 

“Yeah, but this conker is special, dontcha know?” Beth quirks a lopsided smile, slipping into a character he's seen her play before. The salesman, never trust the salesman, she had told him. But this was salesman Beth so he ought to play along, it was funnier that way. 

“How?”

“Weeell” She draws out the syllable, quite obviously stalling for thinking time. “You see, conkers come from trees” Harry nods, duh. “And if this is a special conker, the tree has gotta be special too” He supposes that makes sense. “Well, the tree that this conker came from was very special, very special indeed, because the tree used to be a boy” Okay, that's strange. 

“The boy was not an unusual boy, just quiet, and he had the budding of a wicked sense of humour, I tell you” Harry giggled a little. “He loved this cemetery and would go _aaall_ the time, even if the other children thought he was a bit weird. Then one day... he... met a girl! Yup, he met a girl and they got on like wildfire”

He could imagine it, the ordinary boy who liked to take walks in the cemetery, hands trailing along the tombstones until he stumbled upon a girl who liked the place just as much. Or at least, he guessed she did. And of course they would be friends, it only made sense. 

“The boy would give her loads of gifts, things he found on his adventures. Ancient treasures he discovered in haunted manors, precious gemstones from secret rooms” She crouched a little and Harry found himself leaning against the tree the conker had come from, slumping to sit down as Beth got immersed in her storytelling. She dropped into a stage whisper “and even the scale of a great dragon he killed”

“Why would he kill a dragon?” He asked in the same hushed tone, scandalised. He'd love to meet a real-life dragon. 

“To impress her of course” She explained, back to her normal voice, plopping down to sit cross-legged in front of him. “Boys do stupid things to impress girls”

“But _I_ am not stupid, I don't impress girls” For some reason, that made Beth laugh. 

“No, no, you're not stupid Harry, but you're also nine, teenagers are the stupid ones” She said with a mirthful smile splayed on her lips. 

“You're a teenager”

“ _I'm_ a girl”

“That makes no sense”

“Sh!” She placed a finger over his mouth. “Sh! Sh! Sh! I have a story to tell!” She was acting put-upon but the half-smothered giggles took away from it. “Where was I? Oh! So he was being stupid and killed a dragon to impress her, blah blah, time skip and confessed with one final and most impressive gift - he was in love with her” She said the last bit with an over the top swoon, gazing off into the distance. Harry made a gagging noise. “Okay, he said _you are my bestsest most special friend_ , that work for you?” 

“Yup”

“Alrighty then, well, let's continue. How unfortunate, she said, that you should fall in love-” Harry scowled pointedly “- _platonic_ love with me” With a small explanation of the meaning behind platonic (by small, Harry means the definition including the cliff notes and heavily censored version of how the word derived from the Greek philosopher Plato, Beth was explaining after all) she carried on. “For it is time, she said, that I curse you!”

“What?”

“I never wanted your _very platonic_ love, she explained, it was all a trick! She cackled as the boy cried, but she did admit that she came very close to sparing him. But without further ado, she cursed him into a tree, to become one with the cemetery he loved so dearly while the girl moved on to her next spot which I'm gonna assume was another place that has trees” Beth finished her story with a small seated bow and a few thank-you-very-muchs and oh-it-was-nothings to her imaginary audience. 

“...But why would she curse him?” Harry asked, still not quite over the dramatic twist the tale took. He unclenched his hand from where it had taken root in the grass during the story. 

“Because it's a tragedy!” She exclaimed as though it were obvious.

“But why? Why a tree?” 

“I don't know, the environment probably, turning humankind back to nature one at a time to pay for their pollution! Or something preachy like that” She shrugged and dusted herself off, popping the conker inside her blazer pocket. “Now then, meet me back here in a bit, not too long but not too late... you could really do with a watch”

The two headed in opposite directions, Harry meandering North and paying careful attention to the text on each gravestone. The oldest he came across was 1920 but he didn't think that was going to cut it. 

The cemetery was very pretty in its undisturbed peace, the boy from the story was right to spend his days wandering down the cobbled paths. Especially with the afternoon glow filtering through the cresting tree canopy, yellow mingling with green and spotting the ground with intermittent speckles of light. Breaking from the off-side path, he found himself in open land that was packed full of graves, unlike the tree-lined path that hosted one or two every metre or so. All kinds of tombstones and crosses decorated the area, from elaborate depictions of the lord in marble to simple rocks with family names crudely etched into stone. But what caught his eye wasn't the way the light glinted off the silver trimmings of one grave or the flowers artfully entwined around another.

It was the man who shone so bright in a way Harry hadn't seen in so long. 

Muddled memories of Jamie flickered to mind, a friend he dearly treasured ~~and would never see again~~ along with darker, confusing imagery he didn't want to think about. 

“Hello” Harry greeted, coming to stop just beside him, matching his gaze to the grave before them. Just being next to the man gave him a sense of belonging he'd misplaced for what felt like forever. 

“Oh” The man seemed surprised, they always did ~~aside from Barna...~~. “I wasn't expecting company, not a whole lot of folk like me around these parts, certainly not a whole lot of folk like you”

He was tall, but so was everyone to Harry, with a neatly cut beard that complemented his cropped hair. His clothes were strange, like the adults always wore, a long dress like cloak over a fancy top and pair of trousers. Vibrant colours almost bounced off him and took away from his surroundings in comparison, his pallet being predominantly green and black ~~Barn... Bar... the other had preferred black and gold~~. “Folk like me?”

“Well, magical folk I suppose, but even then they usually can't see me” He explained with one hand gesturing while the other clutched something blue close to his heart. As if internally realising something, he added: “You don't happen to be muggleborn, do you?”

And that was how Harry learned he was a wizard. Quite the revelation really and it explained a lot of things, like that time he'd turned the maths teacher's hair blue for forcing him to work with a boy he _really_ didn't like along with and the “souls” he liked to chat to. Souls, as the man explained, were dead wizards and witches who either had quests they failed to complete while living so stayed tied down or finished their quests and returned to the realm of the living whenever they pleased. He talked about many things, mostly in passing mention. His life, magic, souls, places, all sorts really.

He was called Artemis and the grave belonged to his partner Olivia Reed. “She was a muggle, you see, so she didn't stick around for long, no, she moved on very quickly” He recalled with a distant look to his eyes. “We never were married, unfortunately, didn't get the chance and we wouldn't have been allowed to either way, although I hear that law has changed”

“I wouldn't know sir, I've never been to... Digan Alley” He recalled the Wizarding shopping place Artemis had mentioned.

“Diagon, and no need to call me sir, Artemis is fine and don't worry, you will do around when you turn eleven” He explained with a dismissive wave of his hand, as if being told that he'd soon become a part of an entire new magical world in less than two years time was no big deal. He supposed it was to Artemis, he must have always known magic with him not being a muggleborn and all. 

“Mind you, I'm not sad, just dedicated...” Artemis drifted off, thoughts elsewhere for the umpteenth time. 

Olivia's grave was simple, a standard rounded stone with her name and key dates engraved, the latter he couldn't read. Clearly, it hadn't been tended to in a while despite Artemis' dedication, as ivy crawled up the base and obscured the lower half. It felt right though, there was something about how nature was taking Olivia back, in a very different way to the boy in Beth's story, that struck him as good. 

“Do you know where the oldest grave is?” Beth didn't say anything about asking for help when they set off so he wasn't technically cheating by asking. Plus he kind of wanted to go home and sleep so he doesn't want to spend extra time traipsing down all the little paths. 

“Oldest?” Artemis shuttered out of his daze, blinking a few times. “Ah, well, some of the sixteen hundreds should be close to the church over yonder” 

“Thanks” He made to leave but before he could, Artemis turned to face him, the first time he had during their entire conversation.

“I don't suppose you'd like to visit again? Olivia could do with some fresh company and her birthday is coming up”

“What should I get her?” Harry asked, not missing a beat. He'd never been to a dead person's birthday before, people always seemed to be sad about those who had left the living. Harry was usually sad about them too. But Artemis looked content with a soft smile on his face, perhaps not excited about the upcoming birthday, as Harry would be for Beth's, but not sad either.

“Well, she was never one for flowers, but probably something nice for the little pot” Harry took a closer look and found that there was indeed a pot embedded in the ground, two actually, either side of the stone. The overgrown grass had been hiding them. 

“What day?”

“The twenty-fourth, can you make it?”

“Probably” With that, he left with a skip to his step, headed towards the church. It wasn't long before he reunited with Beth and laid claim to the special conker, having found a grave from 1611.

_-_-_

“Hey, are you even paying attention?” 

Catching the bleary sunrise was another tradition of their's along with the corner shop lollies. Other traditions included pressing dying flowers into books, watching Scooby Doo religiously every Friday and, more recently, visiting Frankie at the pet shop. His body yearned for the bed but the view was a beautiful sight to witness.

Xanthous hues swept the length of the landing and down the stairs, obstructed only by shadows of their own making, stretched out and warped by the geography of the steps. Mottled carpet became cotton orange and the underside of the rickety wooden roof was hidden in darkness. He stared at the boundary between the illusions of the morning sun and the truth his shadow hid, thinking hard on the one topic that had been plaguing him ever since he'd left the cemetery.

“What would you get for someone who doesn't like flowers?”

“You weren't listening at all!” Beth sighed with a huff that carried no real anger. She closed the book she had been reading to him, marking the page with a spotted grey feather. Romeo and Juliet. “And valentines is ages away”

“But what would you get?” He asked, ignoring the way she stroked the book overly affectionately. “What would _you_ want?”

“Probably another feather for my collection, I have seven now!” She proclaimed, sliding her hand from the book cover to the bookmark, twiddling the feather's ends but not in a way that would ruffle them badly. “And they're all different colours”

Feathers then. A trip to the pet shop was in order. 

Later, he popped down to the pet shop without Beth in tow, prompting one middle-aged woman to ask him if he was lost and if he wanted help finding his mummy on the way. Apparently saying that he doesn't have a mummy, or a daddy when asked further, was not the correct answer as it took a lot of explaining to calm the woman down and prevent her from taking him to the police station. He hates police stations. When she asked if he was sick he walked right past her. 

The pet shop owner, Garret as he had learned, was a little surprised too to see him without Beth. But he didn't go running for help which was why Garret might have been his favourite person after Beth in the moment in time. 

The baby cockatoos chirped happily and pressed against the bars. The parents hissed and spat from the farthest corner. Thankfully, Garret had gotten used to how Harry set them off. 

“So how can I help yah today, Harry?” He asks, tucking away a chequebook into the pocket of his faded blue apron. Come to think of it, Harry wasn't entirely sure what the pet store was called, everything was just so faded. 

He bit his lips, a little nervous talking to an adult without Beth. Adults that confronted him? Fine. Dead wizard's and witches' Souls? Fine. Garret? His key worker? The teacher? Not fine. “um, well, I was thinking, um... if you had any feathers?” 

“There might be some at the bottom of the cage?” Garret says, a lilt to the end of his voice. Carefully, he unlocks a lower cage door, mindful of the residents. “I'll check”

He was able to find two feathers, one pure white and the other a gradient from yellow to white. They're perfect. 

“Yah know, I think I'm gonna have to keep Frankie here with me” He says as he closes the little door. The bird in question is in the back, not for sale, but Garret liked to bring him (Frankie was a boy, he'd told them) out into the front room of the store when the two visited. “He's too accustomed to living with me” 

Harry wasn't sure what he thought about that. What was life for a bird on the inside? Born into the wild only to be taken by the tame. When he was a little younger, he believed for a short while that he'd come from the sea and was sent to live a landlubbers life for a wrong he couldn't remember. Dr Jacqueline explained that he had been born like everyone else but happened to have ungrateful guardians who left him by the beech and he must have been swept in by the tide. ~~Lie.~~

In the end, he never really reached a conclusion. Frankie lived here now and that was that. 

He gave Garret a short stuttered goodbye and hurried out of the shop with his two feathers, but not before spending some time with Frankie. 

The twenty-fourth comes around in what feels like no time at all. The difference between now and when he first arrived at the House is growing exponentially larger each day and he's having a hard time envisioning a time when he didn't walk to and from school with Beth every day. He feels settled, even with that near-constant feeling of... discomfort that hums in the back of his mind. But that's just how life is. The cloudy sleepiness of his brain helps though, it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be. 

“Happy Birthday Olivia” He barely whispers when he slips into place next to Artemis. The late Autumn Sunday is breezy in the cemetery and he thinks he'd be rather cold if his key worker hadn't insisted he wear his little blue raincoat.

“Happy Birthday Olivia” Artemis repeats, just as soft but with an added sense of something deeper. The wind rustles the distant trees and whistles in his ears yet there is a different sort of silence that envelops them. He presents the feathers to Artemis. 

“Oh! She would have loved them, I'm sure of it” His smile is a lip splitter as he gives Harry an encouraging rub on the back, something he can feel surprisingly enough, and watches as he places the white one into the left pot.

“Keep the other one” He says and Harry looks towards him, confused, he brought them specifically for Olivia. “I'd like to show you something, do you have something sharp on you?”

“My key worker, um, I mean Sharon said I'm not allowed sharp things” He replies a little quietly.

“Bit clumsy are we?” No. “Well, I'll just have to show you one I made earlier” He chuckles at his own little reference, finally releasing the hand that always seems to clutch his chest. In his palm is a beautiful blue feather, stained black at the tip. “You see the nib? Carved it myself, now see, what you do here is...” He launches into a step by step tutorial of how to transform an ordinary feather into a quill, getting him to draw out the markings with his school pen (“You got ink?” “I got a pen” “Oh! Muggles and their convenience... well this is prettier”). 

“Now you take that home with you and carve it out and you'll have a quill, perfect for elegant handwriting” 

He doesn't find a use for the quill until Winter starts to give way to spring. Beth is picking him up from school as per usual, but she's positively beaming which is anything but usual since it's only been half an hour since she's left her miserable school. “Tess!” She shouts as she practically launches a hug at Harry with no regard for his fellow school children around him. He perseveres. “Tess!” She repeats as she breaks away from him. “Tess of the D'Ubbervilles, I found a tragedy in the school library that has a female protagonist!” She drags him by the wrist away from the crowd before spinning with him. “Tess is the one for me! Shame about the content really, proper dark, but she's a girl!” She pauses for breath and Harry almost falls back in a dizzy spell. “Happy freaking Birthday to me!” She laughs, not noticing at first how Harry is trying to get her attention. It takes a few moments for her to calm down.

“I have something for you” He says with quiet confidence, a small smile stretching his lips just so. “I wrapped it at break” 

He presents a small and thin package wrapped in translucent red paper that's glued a little messily together. The sharp things rule even counted at school, much to his annoyance. He was always watched intensely by the assistant teacher whenever he was in the craft corner so he tended to avoid it, but this was important. 

Be-Tess unwrapped the paper with extreme delicacy and he can't bring himself to watch her reaction. Not that he has anything to worry about as she unfurls the quill and gasps in delight. “That's so cool!” She exclaimed, bringing the nib up close to her eyes for inspection. “Woah, where'd you get it?”

“I made it” 

“No way! You've got to show me how!” She quizzes him on technique and style all the way back to the house, half of the questions he can't even answer, those he meets with rather unimpressed looks. What even was the answer to “If I stabbed Jeremy in the eye with it, do you reckon he'd go blind or just need glasses?”

Harry knew lots of obscure crafts and this wasn't the first time he'd taught Tess something new. In return, Tess read stories to him, took him exploring and just talked to him in general. Time spent without Tess was a vacuum that didn't need to be mentioned. ~~Why don't the other kids like me?~~ Harry listened, followed and passed on what he'd learnt from the various souls he had encountered. Ribbon tying from Mrs Malcolm, flower pressing from Jodie Wilkes, handshakes from Jamie and a few more bits and pieces here and there. The 'official' source of his niche bites of information was 'external reading' at school. Just because he spends a lot of time in the library it doesn't mean that he's spending that time reading but it helps the adults 'rationalise' it as Dr Jacqueline would say.

Whatever the adults say, Harry doesn't particularly care. They can have their rationalising and their safeguarding. They can pretend souls aren't real. What Harry cares about are his friends, Tess and Artemis. He'll count Olivia Reed in that list too. Oh, and Frankie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Tether's_ exploration into these themes is different
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> Harry doesn't have a family. Neither does Tess. Nor do any of the children at their care home. Harry's parents died before he could know them, Lily sacrificing her life for him out of love, a love he never truly got to feel and may have caused him more bad than good. Then his own flesh and blood cast him out. The laws of the natural order of family do not apply here. 
> 
> Thanks to [Sweet_Tooth_Decayed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweet_tooth_decayed) for being the beta for this chapter.


	4. sick sick sick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A certain man makes a certain appearance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tragedy notes at the end.**
> 
> Okay, so, as you can probably tell, I've given up on this whole revision thing. I've been slumped with work and what not, plus my A-Level exam for this subject is actually like... a month or so away. 
> 
> But I will continue to say where my inspiration and notes from Tragedy come into this story because it is still heavily inspired by what I have learnt. 
> 
> This chapter is also shorter than intended because it's been lying around for ages without any continuation because I've been so busy. So I decided to just post it so the wait for more isn't as long as it could be. I'll get on writing this once I'm no longer swamped.

Spring passes much the same as Winter. Weekdays are wasted at school with the exception of the holidays and weekends make for a window to visit Frankie and Artemis or just stay in bed. Sunrises are caught, school runs are shared and Friday lollies are bought. His key worker makes sure he follows the doctor's orders and sees to it that he wears a coat when it's chilly. The children leave him alone. When summer brings about early rises and pollen, he asks for his birthday to be overlooked in favour of keeping to the routine. Unfortunately for him, Tess thought that was preposterous and quickly shut that idea down. 

“Look, I've got you a gift already!” She says with a downwards tug to her smile that Harry doesn't like _at all_ so he simply has no choice but to accept the small package thrust into his hands. 

He unwraps the deftly packaged gift, tearing at the cello-tape but trying his best to not make a mess of it. Apparently, he was too meticulous with his unwrapping because she grabbed the present from him and tore is apart herself, grumbling half-heartedly about how slow he was. Once she is finished, she encloses his hand around the now bare gift. 

A brilliant feather lay in his palm, a little ruffled, a seamless blend from black to grey colouring its body. At the end, a pen nib was carved into the tip. Another item was placed in his hand, a small pot of what looked like ink. 

“It's actually black paint that I poured into one of those fancy glass things from Quality Save, we really could do with an art shop 'round here, a proper one I mean” She explained, accompanying him as he walked down to his room and placed it nice and safe on his shelf, next to a leaf, a few storybooks and a battered kitten plush with missing eyes. 

His room isn't very personal, he's only lived there for around two years and he only uses it to sleep. Important activities almost always involve Tess and Tess loves to be anywhere but holed up in a room. Well, it is personal, just not to him. He shares with another boy named Timothy who avoids the place just as much as he does but for a different reason. ~~That reason is me.~~ However, he's been here longer and hadn't had to share until Harry came along, so the room is mostly suited to Timothy's interest in robots while Harry gets the shelves on the left wall and the bed with the plain yellow cover. They don't spend long there. 

On the way to school, Tess bought him a chocolate bar which he happily stowed away in his bookbag to eat at break. 

He doesn't get to eat it at break. 

Before Miss Keats can ring the break time bell, the class sing happy birthday. They're already sat around in a circle because it's still circle time, annoyingly, so everyone can see Harry as he stares intently at the ground. Wondering about things like whether or not it's true that you can dig a hole to China and if he could perhaps do that now. He ignored the chanting so well that it takes him a second to realise that the bell has been rung and the song is over. With a long-awaited sigh, he headed over to the bookbag rack for his chocolate when something familiar caught his eye. Awfully familiar. 

Through the dusty window above the rack, he spotted a figure just on the outskirts of the playground, leant against the metal railing. He had a glow to him that he could have said was a bit like Artemis but no, darkness couldn't glow yet that figure radiated pitch black. Miss Keats had said so, darkness is the absence of light, but here was this man glowing impossibly.

Chocolate forgotten, Harry headed outside to where the other children ran around in the mid-summer heat, only to pass the concrete playground completely and walk along the grassy border.

A conflicting swirl of emotions twisted within him as he drew closer, two urgent needs battling each other. One to approach the figure and the other to run as far away as possible. The first won out and he came to a stop a mere metre from him, close enough to see how his glow leached the colour from the world around him. He was sick. 

“I heard you could help me” He said, a one-sided smile stretched across his square jaw. He was rather curious looking, but they always were, with his feathered hat and long gold trimmed robes. Artemis was the one who gave him the name of the strange dressing gown like clothes the not-real people wore. The rest of his outfit reminded him of an old fashioned gentleman. 

There's a long moment where Harry just takes it all in, the clothes, the voice, the smile and the sick, sick eyes. Everything about the man is wrong and sick and he needs him and Harry could help ~~he helped Barnabus~~ but Harry knows. He knows what happens when he helps. The last time he helped a sick person, he got sick too. 

So Harry runs for the school gate and runs and runs and runs.

_-_-_

He shouldn't have run. Or at least, that's what his key worker tells him. Deep down Harry knows he was in the right. But that doesn't stop his chest from seizing when Tess tells him off. That's much worse than anything his key worker could ever do to him.

It starts slow. She finds him sat on the garden slide's steps with only the disjointed song of a wind chime for company. Nothing masks her approach as she stomps over, not the chime nor the grass that should have muffled her footfalls. Dread crawls up his spine and curls around him like the uncomfortably tight scarf that one of the adults spun around his neck.

“I waited for you” she said when she stepped out in front of him, hands on her hips as she always has them when she's passionate about something. He's just never witnessed this brand of passion before, the stormy kind that has him instinctively curling in on himself just a little. He had to make a conscious effort to not just duck his head between his legs. “And you weren't there”

It's so simple. The declaration is a fact. She's not told him that she's angry, not gone into a rant or cried or screamed at him. But that's even worse, he thinks, she's only stated the truth and he can't hide from that. It's not like when the other kids at school get mad, they tell him how they feel and how he's hurt their feelings. In those cases, he hadn't really done anything, at least not intentionally. Here, he had done something that had hurt his only real friend and there wasn't any getting around that. 

But then, she hugged him. Asked him what was wrong. He told her. She took him back inside. Tucked him into bed. Said she didn't know what to do and left.

(Because really, he's got problems and while Tess thinks the world of him and is praised by adults for her maturity, she's only a couple years older and very much still a child)

In the morning, it's easy to forget that anything happened at all and Tess seems to think the same thing. They catch the sunrise together, follow their routine like they would on any ordinary day up until they're ready to go and find themselves with a tag along. Harry's key worker. 

“It's only for a short while, don't worry your little head about it” She said with an over the top smile. She doesn't mean anything bad by it but it irritates Harry to no end. Irritates Tess too, if they way she glowers at her is any indication. 

There are a few new rules. He has to be accompanied by an adult at all times when he's outside of the house, so that means there's no Friday lollies or spontaneous adventures with Tess. His curfew has been lowered so there's not much point to adventuring anyway. And he must, absolutely must, follow the doctor's orders which means he will be more tired than ever. 

“It's stupid” Tess complained, journal set aside on the grass so she can better use her arms to demonstrate her points, gesturing at thin air. They're sat by the lone pear tree within the house's perimeter, revelling in what outdoor privileges Harry still has. Honestly, he's not sure why Tess hasn't abandoned him yet, she's not the one with the curfew. “You did one thing, _one_ thing and they're proper annoyed about it like you've done ten” 

Harry sighed, retreating further into his scarf so that just his eyes are peaking over the rim. He can see Abigail and Lucy playing with skipping ropes a little ways from Darren and Timothy who were taking turns on the slide, hence why they were sat by the tree instead. 

“I mean, I know you have your thing, you know, the doctor thing, but still” Tess finished, shoulders slumping and hands falling limp by her sides. “This sucks”

It does suck, but they're content to sit and observe as the sun falls into slumber behind them. Soon enough, his key worker would be coming out to shoo them back inside for dinner followed promptly by an early bed. Harry does see it, no one else is treated this way. He would run out of fingers counting the number of times James did something bad and got away with it but as soon as Harry mucks up, they're all 'up in arms' as Tess put it in one of her earlier rants. Nothing he can do about it though.

As predicted, Sharron does come out to get them in for dinner and leads him to his bed after a trip to the bathroom to get washed up and follow the doctor's orders. But just because they put him to bed earlier, it doesn't mean he's going to sleep earlier. Sure, he's tired. Always tired. But he's not tired tired right _now_. So there's no point. 

Once he can no longer hear his key worker's footsteps on the stairs, he carefully pulled the cover back from where she'd tucked it into the frame and strolled over to the high window. He'd have about an hour to peak at the outside world before Timothy came up, at a sky that was decidedly not dark enough to dictate his bedtime. He'd been doing this for a week now.

However, this day, Tuesday, something is different. It only takes him a couple of moments to notice it, it's hard to miss. The sickness is all-encompassing. It takes a part of the world and sucks all of the life out of it, creating that unearthly black light that lines the man currently stood in the ginnel between the house and the next door neighbour. The sick man isn't going to leave him alone. He already knows this. The man knows this. Harry can't see much point in staving it off any longer. 

So he collected his pillows and steals the one Timothy forgot about that fell between the wall and the boy's bed frame and stuffs them beneath his yellow duvet, packing in his kitten plush with a soft apology for good measure. When the last time he was thankful for his short stature was, he's not sure, but he is glad now because he doesn't have enough pillows to fake a full body. 

Satisfied that it sort of looks like he's still in bed if one doesn't pay too much attention to the squareness of the bed lump he's made, he snook down the stairs, keeping to the edges of the floorboards, and into the hallway. Spilling from the slightly ajar door, the sounds of a boisterous conversation in the next room can be heard but Harry pays no heed to it. Instead, his focus is on how intimidating the white front door suddenly seems with its unclean stained glass window piece up top and rusted false gold handle. The door looms over him, much like the head of the house, and feels like it could suddenly come to life and tell him to go back to bed with a light smack upside his head. However, the door does none of this when he gets over his trepidation and turns the handle, pocketing the keys that were still inside the lock. Quickly, he slides through the opening he created and pulls the door to.

Perhaps he should have listened all those times when he's been told to pop on a coat when he goes outside, he thought as the late night chill sent a short shiver quaking through his bones. But he can't turn back now, there's too much of a risk being caught. Keeping low and beneath the viewpoint of the front windows, he trudged out of the small front garden, past the “Wilbur's Home for Children” sign on the brick wall and took exactly three small steps into the ginnel before reaching a standstill. 

“Hello Harry, my name is Bradbury Hacklesworth, I heard that you can help me”

From the window, hidden away within the confines of the house, it was easy to misremember the feeling of the sickness and come to the decision of _sure, guess I'll help._ Now he's there and it's sick sick sick crawling under his skin and latching onto his veins and clawing at his heart and pinching at his nerves and- it's just, a lot.

“... What do you need help with?” Harry settled on asking once he could get past the enveloping void that Bradbury is. Seems it never would get better, even if this is his second go. ~~Failed the first time~~. Surprisingly, his voice comes out clear and strong, completely at odds with the way his hands are shaking from more than just the cold.

“Well, you see, it's terrible really, I've unfinished business – we all do, we always do, but it's quite pressing...” Hacklesworth tipped into a rambling tale of widowers, lost wills and children left behind. It's hard not to feel sympathetic for him, it's tragic as Tess would say, but not hard enough for him to ignore how the world around Hacklesworth rejects him. Harry can't say how he knows that's what's happening here, rejection, he can just tell. 

“... I, I never got the chance” Hacklesworth finished, wiping an invisible tear from his eye and slumping dramatically. Maybe the not-there-people don't have tears. 

Exactly how much time passed between the beginning and end of the tale is anyone's guess but it is significantly colder now, so Harry bolted back inside as soon as Hacklesworth is done listing off the items he must collect so he can fix the wrongs and make the man well again. 

(If Harry had been able to visit Artemis and give the wizard and rundown of the weeks events like he had taken to doing, he would have been able to steer Harry away. He would have asked to meet “this strange Hacklesworth figure”. But, as it was, Artemis hadn't seen Harry that week. Not that he noticed, time is an odd thing to measure when one's days begin to grow past countable numbers.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The teacher Mrs. Keats is actually named after a poet named John Keats who had quite a bit of a dabble in tragic poetry.
> 
> He was a sufferer of unrequited love. Aka he was friend zoned and was quite dramatic about it. He was in love with his neighbour Fanny Brawne and translated his frustrations into his poetry. 
> 
> Now, I haven't fact checked this, but I'm fairly certain his editor told him off about this, saying that this fancy was distracting him from his works. His editor actually sounds like a pretty cool guy in general, he told Keats to tone it down with the sexualisation of women in his poems because his audience was mostly comprised of women and well, it's a bit awkward to read. 
> 
> Some of them are still hella sexual but the first drafts were much worse.

**Author's Note:**

> I know I have a few fics incomplete and a series waiting on a continuation. Here's how it is:
> 
> \- **There is Not a Thing of Fate** The plot sucks and needs working on  
> \- **Personal Promises Are Hard To Keep** I have a 99 paged power point that maps out the plot and it's still incomplete but it will come  
> \- **Invisible Person Syndrome** It's an inspired piece so of course I love the concept BUT I fell out of love with where it was headed. I'll work on it after Personal Promises.  
> \- **T or D** Literally no one is waiting for this to be updated but I thought I'd mention it for shits and giggles
> 
> There are also future Harry Potter fics I have in mind. 
> 
> I'm gonna place a schedule/priorities list on my profile that I'll try to remember to keep updated. For now, have this. Given that this is a revision tool, it should keep going for some time.


End file.
